


A Tight-Knit Family Dinner Explanation

by benfic



Category: None - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 12:49:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15195131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benfic/pseuds/benfic
Summary: [NOT FIC-- This is an explanation of Jewish customs observed inA Tight-Knit Family Dinner! Please do not just read this alone, it'll make no sense.]





	A Tight-Knit Family Dinner Explanation

_(based on my own experiences as an Orthodox Jew living in the Bay Area in 2018.)_

 

Shabbat is a weekly holiday for Jews held on Saturdays. It begins on Friday night at sundown and continues ‘til Saturday night when three stars are out (so, yes, the gang begins a little late here). Generally, one dresses semi-formally, though depending on what you wear during the day, you may not have to change (I’ve gotten away with not changing a black skirt and just putting on a white shirt on top instead of my T-shirt).

 

The candles that are lit on Friday night can look pretty much however you want, but it’s customary to use tea candles because you are not allowed to blow out the Shabbat candles and it would be a waste to use something expensive.

 

ShabBAT vs. SHAbbos (emphasis noted)-- the gang uses different words because most of the Jews I meet who aren’t belonging to a specific, generally more stringent, sect don’t have a preference. You say either ‘good Shabbos’ or ‘Shabbat Shalom’ (never... mix that up, the emphasis will ruin it), but other than that most people don’t care so strongly. More on that later, though.

 

Challah is a braided bread that is eaten on Shabbat... not much more to say there. It is covered up before the blessing over it, and there are other reasons given than Jason’s, but children love to talk about how shy the challah is, so I wanted to give Jason the chance to do it, too.

 

(Note: the ‘shyness’ is theoretically due to the fact that a meal is traditionally opened with bread. Since the blessing over bread covers all foods eaten afterwards (under the assumption that one is eating a full meal; as opposed to saying blessings individually for different types of food as snacks), it makes logical sense to begin with bread.)

 

Kiddush cups have to be a certain size-- technically any cup above the given size can be used, but due to the fact that 1) it’s a special occasion 2) you have to drink most of the wine in the cup 3) you have to fill the entire cup with wine, letting it overflow... most people just get a special kiddush cup of a particular size. Jason’s choice is (one of) [ my family’s kiddush cup(s) ](https://www.ajudaica.com/Nickel-Plated-Kiddush-cup-Jerusalem-Design/item1068?gclid=CjwKCAjwsdfZBRAkEiwAh2z65qS0XcQJpUd61cPpC26yaO7oVkpWzrPG_0P_u_eNPlgh6O6VbAgBLxoCWSEQAvD_BwE). We also have many, because for some reason other Jews think we don’t have any and they keep gifting them to us.

 

The mugs are just part of my fun personal Falsettos universe; they get mentioned again [ here ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952983).

 

Candles are explained pretty extensively in the fic; not much to add. I assume men living alone/without women don’t usually light candles, but (for example) I prefer to light candles despite being AFAB nonbinary because I like the meaning and I think Shabbat would be less Shabbat-like without them. It’s up to the individual.

 

Benchers are used to do most meal-related blessings, because how are you going to remember everything otherwise? You can even get bencher apps nowadays! (I say meal-related only because the everyday prayers are found in a Siddur.)

 

People tend to sing songs before doing the officially required part of Kiddush. To be honest, the songs might be required, too... Anyway, (translations are rough...) _Shalom Aleichem/Welcome_ (first song) welcomes angels into the home, _Mizmor L’David/A Psalm of David_ (second song) is... what it sounds like, _Eishes Chayil/A Woman of Valor_ (third) is genuinely required of husbands to sing about their wives to remember that they are Very Lucky. No wonder Jason wants Marvin to sing it :’( I have no idea what is usually done in homes without wives; I assume nothing. Marvin could have some respect for Trina, though. (And I should note Jason is basing this off what he thinks Shabbat should be like, not necessarily what it _would_ be like in Marvin’s house.)

 

Hecht is a real live Rabbi in San Francisco who has hosted my family many, many times and provides many Jews with a place to eat a good Shabbat dinner; I mean him no disrespect by randomly including him :’D I guess Marvin time-traveled into his Chabad house. Google that.

 

There is in fact a slow and fast version of the most common tune for Shalom Aleichem. I loathe people who sing the slow one; the thing is several verses long and each verse is repeated THREE TIMES; do we really need to go any slower???

 

I don’t always hear Mizmor L’David at other people’s tables; I originally forgot to include it in this fic at all. Whizzer is entirely valid in not remembering it. Also, a solo for Jason!

 

(Blessings for the children fairly self-explanatory.)

 

It’s not in the bencher, but during the line that essentially asks permission from those seated at the table _(savri maranan [v’rabanan v’rabotai])_ most people I’ve been to Shabbat dinner with have a custom of saying _l’chaim_ because it means roughly the same thing as ‘cheers’. So like “are we doing this thing?” “YEAH we’re doing this thing” because I can’t come up with a better translation.

 

Both Jason and Whizzer are right, in a way; Jews are largely separated into a few ‘ethnic’ groups (being Jewish is a complex ethnicity in itself) and Ashkenazi Jews, who come from the general Europe-ish area, tend to pronounce the final letter in the Hebrew alphabet as ‘s’, versus Sephardi Jews, who pronounce it as ‘t’. Technically I’d say Ashkenazi Jews are ‘right’, as otherwise the alphabet ends with two letters that both act as ‘t’ sounds (taf and taf) vs having.. two different letters. But whatever; I’m clearly going full Sephardi here because I think it sounds nicer, so let’s move on. The entire family clearly can’t decide how to pronounce anything, and I’m not very good at understanding the difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardi.

 

(I was actually once told by my sister that there were three gates leading to The World To Come: one for Ashkenazim, one for Sephardim, and one for Everyone Else, and that our family was going to go through the uber-cool third gate! So I guess that’s something.)

 

Whizzer don’t use the bencher as a vehicle for your lovers’ squabbles!!! It is true that many religious Jews treat holy books... well, like holy book; I, for example, was shocked this morning to find that I had accidentally placed a bag on top of the bencher I was using as a reference on my desk. I feel very, very odd when I see a holy book (bencher, Siddur, pretty much anything containing God’s name) not at the top of a stack of books.

 

Pretty sure only one person should say kiddush, but who cares, right?

 

Washing cups are also called _negel vassers._ Yeah, what? Anyway, Jews wash their hands before saying the blessing over bread. As you can see, no soap is used, and you go three times on each side and don’t speak until you eat bread-- it’s like kiddush itself; if you say a blessing, you want to focus only on that blessing. It wouldn’t make sense to, for example, say a blessing over wine, take a walk, and then come back and drink your wine-- so we don’t talk between washing hands and eating bread.

 

(Whizzer remembers the ‘first half’ of the blessing because tons of blessings in Hebrew sound exactly the same up until the important bit-- _Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has commanded us in the etc etc etc..._ )

 

If you don’t know what gefilte fish is, you didn’t watch Falsettos. It’s not the best of all foods, but since @writedontfight said Whizzer didn’t like it in [ Crazy Notion ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12444864/chapters/34488164) , I decided Whizzer would just have to _eat it_ in my fic. Yeah, exactly. Take that, you goddamn genius who can write like a god.

 

Yes, people order benchers as party favors for their children’s bar/bat mitzvot. These are actually helpful when you have a lot of guests over, so it makes sense! Whereas you’ll only ever really need one Kiddush cup...

 

For an entire week straight I told myself I would say the Blessing after Meals after lunch, and guess what I did? Not that. It is genuinely so extremely long, and while it’s a lot of fun to do with a group of people who know the different tunes, it can get a bit monotonous on your own.

 

You cannot convince me that Marvin wouldn’t care about his kid dating other Jews. The most secular of Jews can still be intense about this-- and to be fair, it’s at least partially because the population of Jews is shrinking by the year and the traditions are being lost _(coughs loudly in the direction of Marvin not knowing how to read Hebrew, and then in my own direction because I can’t read it any faster than one word a minute despite BEING RAISED ORTHODOX),_ so it’s not just Jews being nuts.

 

We often have these goddamn disgusting non-marshmallows in the house because I am Russian and my Russian parents enjoy terrible, evil food and they buy it and put it on the table and every time I eat it like some kind of idiot who can’t tell that IT’S GOING TO TASTE BAD BECAUSE IT TASTES BAD EVERY TIME, ME. So this part is very true-to-life, though not for all Jews. You have to buy it in a Russian store... Marvin, you fool.

 

The Navi is like a history book for the Jewish people, if you believe that it’s history and not fairy tales. I recommend taking a Navi class to a truly unbelievable degree; the sheer fucking drama of it all is overpowering. Oh you’re gonna run from this fight, general on the opposing side? Well I’m gonna chase you ‘cause I’m KNOWN (for some reason) for being super duper fast, and then I’ll catch up to you and you’ll kill me because what else were you going to do, you’re a general, and then my BROTHER will get revenge on you by killing you right back! So there, fucker.

 

(^ Real story. Also, a guy dies because his hair is too long. Also please please please look up the story of David and Batsheva, it is WILD and sad as hell for Batsheva’s husband.)

 

Shameless fruity gay joke. (Re: tea.)

 

I love the Shema! To the point that I offered it to someone who wanted their mother character to sing a kind of lullaby to their child character-- Seriously, some of my best memories with my parents are related to our singing of the Shema. Look up the text; it’s lovely. (The Shema is a traditional prayer sung before bed.)

 

I will say that electronics are not used on Shabbat (by Orthodox Jews, at least), but I think this is really down to personal preference and blah blah tradition vs. logic vs. self-interest. I don’t use electronics, I know many people who do. I know _Orthodox_ people whose only exception to Orthodoxy is using their phone on Shabbat. So I figured, who cares; Marvin can turn on as many lights as he wants.

 

Also, some people don’t brush their teeth (I can feel the hairs on the back of Whizzer’s neck rise at this one) on Shabbat because it can in theory cause your gums to bleed-- again, down to personal preference. I try to brush when I remember, but I always fall asleep early on Shabbat... Dinner is so _long..._

 

Everything-- seriously, everything-- that Marvin says about sex is correct. I would swear this in court if necessary. Look it up; I promise it’s true.

 

And Havdalah is Havdalah; feel free to Google but I actually never personally use a bencher for it (all you do is respond amen and do all the little actions) so I don’t know a lot more than anyone else what’s up with 90% of it.

 

Finally, the bencher I always use with my family (and always see used in general) is the NCSY bencher; that's also the one I handed to the gang in this fic.

 

Thank you for reading, if you did! Questions most certainly taken at sih.tumblr.com/ask.

  


**Author's Note:**

> See, imagine if you'd read this without the fic. You'd have assumed I just stood by _everything_ Marvin says about sex, and that would have been insane.


End file.
